Palace Reliefs from Kalhu (Nimrud) High School Activity Booklet Created by Eliza Graumlich ’17 Student Education Assistant Bowdoin College Museum of Art Winged Spirit or Apkallu Anointing Ashurnasirpal II from Kalhu (Nimrud), Iraq, 875–860 BCE. Bowdoin College Museum of Art WHAT A RELIEF On November 8, 1845, a young English diplomat named Austen Henry Layard boarded a small raft in Mosul, Iraq and set off down the Tigris River, carrying with him “a variety of guns, spears, and other formidable weapons” as Layard described in his account Discoveries at Nineveh (1854). He told his companions that he was off to hunt wild boars in a nearby village but, actually, he was hoping to hunt down the remains of an ancient city. Layard previously noticed large mounds of earth near the village of Nimrud, Iraq and hoped that excavation would reveal ruins. He arrived at his destination that evening under the cover of darkness. 2 The next morning, Layard began digging with the help of seven hired locals and various tools that he had gathered in secret. He feared that Turkish officials would not grant him permission for the excavation. Within a few hours, dirt and sand gave way to stone; Layard had discovered the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Kalhu. Layard continued his excavation over the next six years, ultimately discovering “three more palaces, an arsenal, two temples, and the walls of both citadel and city” as Barbara Nevling Porter described in Trees, Kings, and Politics: Studies in Assyrian Iconography (2003) At the end of the excavation, Dr. Henri Byron Haskell, an 1855 graduate of the Medical School of Maine at Bowdoin College, asked for five of the carved stone relief panels discovered in the palace for his alma mater. The reliefs were sent by raft down the Tigris to India and then by ship to the United States for a total cost of $728.17. Examining these reliefs raises many questions: - Why were the reliefs made? What was their intended effect? - What are the figures in the relief doing? What are they wearing? - What do these symbols reveal about Assyrian society? - Who owns, or who should own, ancient art? - What makes the reliefs so historically valuable? What additional questions do you have? List three. 1._______________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ 2._______________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ 3._______________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ 3 WHAT IS A RELIEF? While most people are familiar with drawings, paintings and sculptures, reliefs are less commonly known. Coming from the Italian word relievare (“to raise”), a relief is an artwork in which the subject matter protrudes from the background, which is usually a flat surface. The Assyrian reliefs are classified as bas reliefs (also known as low reliefs), which means that their subjects protrude only slightly from the background. Though these reliefs were carved, reliefs can also be made by adding material to a surface. Another common type of relief is a high relief, in which the subjects protrude from the surface to a greater degree and may be disconnected from it entirely. See the bas relief (left) and high relief (right) below for reference. (left) Mabel Viola Harris Conkling, Bust of Frederick MacMonnies, 1937, bronze relief plaque, Bowdoin College Museum of Art; (right) Unknown Artist, Marble Relief of a Sleeping Heracles, ca. 323 BCE-001 BCE, marble, Bowdoin College Museum of Art List 3-5 everyday objects that could be considered reliefs: 4 HOW DID KING ASHURNASIRPAL II DECORATE? The reliefs in the Northwest Palace were commissioned by the king. Painted with colorful images of the king himself, supernatural guardian figures, hunting and war scenes, the relief panels decorated the walls of the throne room, banquet halls, inner courtyards, and more. Now, only remnants of color remain: white pigment can still be seen in some of the figures’ eyes and red pigment is visible on one sandal depicted in the Bowdoin reliefs. The reliefs also featured text written in cuneiform, an ancient writing system with wedge-shaped characters. During the time of the king, the palace walls might have looked something like this: Hand-colored lithograph, 1849, by John Murray. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. 5 SYMBOLISM Imagine decorating the walls of your bedroom. What might you use? Why? What would people think about you if they didn’t know you and only looked at the objects on your walls? Draw some possible decorations in the column on the left and list their meanings and connotations in the column on the right. What do these objects say about you? DECORATION MEANING / CONNOTATION 6 Symbols often add greater meaning to a work of art, revelaing the distinct visual language of an individual culture. A symbol is “a form, sign or emblem that represents something else, often something immaterial, such as an idea or emotion” (MOMA). For example, the color red is often used as a symbol of passion or fury. Bedroom decorations, such as baseball mitts or records, might be symbols of a person’s passion for sports or music. Examine the Assyrian reliefs to determine which elements could be symbolic. Begin by looking at the example below: Two Winged, Eagle-Headed Spirits from Kalhu (Nimrud), Iraq, 875–860 BCE. Bowdoin College Museum of Art. What do you see? A stylized tree or plant (probably a date palm) with many leaves What could it symbolize? The fertility of the land, abundance of resources What does it suggest about Assyrian society? Importance of agriculture 7 Winged Spirit of Apkallu from Kalhu (Nimrud), Iraq, 875–860 BCE. Bowdoin College Museum of Art. What do you see? What could it symbolize? What does it suggest about Assyrian society? 8 Winged Spirit or Apkallu Anointing Ashurnasirpal II from Kalhu (Nimrud), Iraq, 875–860 BCE. Bowdoin College Museum of Art What do you see? (Note the carved profile on the right and the damage to the two figures on the left.) What could it symbolize? What does it suggest about Assyrian society? 9 ART IS MOVING! Bowdoin’s reliefs were initially displayed in the Chapel and then in the Museum’s Rotunda. They were moved to the Assyrian Gallery during the Museum’s 2005–2007 renovations. Although the reliefs appear as monolithic slabs, each is composed of two to five fragments, breaks that occurred when they were first removed from the palace walls. The reliefs were disassembled in the Rotunda, moved to the new gallery, and then installed by a team supervised by an art conservator. After the move to the Assyrian Gallery, nineteenth-century repairs were removed, revealing ancient vandalism to the Winged Spirit or Apkallu Anointing Ashurnasirpal II that is significant to the history of the reliefs. The defacement took place during the sack of Kalhu by the Medes and Babylonians at the end of the seventh century BCE. Look at the reliefs again, after completing the symbolism activities. Do you see anything new? Describe it below: _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ 10 REPATRIATION Recently, there have been several high-profile cases in which pieces of art from museum collections have been returned to their countries of origin, a process known as repatriation. Discuss with a partner: • Who owns art? • Who should be able to see art? • How do museums acquire art? • How should museums acquire art? Now, answer the following question independently in writing: Why do you think a museum would return objects willingly from its own collections? _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ The Excavation of a Winged Bull as portrayed in Popular Account of Discoveries at Nineveh by Austen Henry Layard, 1867. 11 Read the following arguments for and against repatriation FOR Most Western museums now acknowledge a strong ethical case for returning objects, especially if they have been found to have left their countries of origin under dubious circumstances, as in the case of the goddess of Morgantina. The Getty, which had bought the statue in 1988 for $18 million, returned to Italy in 2011 after Italian prosecutors found that it had been looted, illegally exported and sold by dealers who very likely dissembled about its provenance. Some argue that repatriation, particularly of Western antiquities, speaks to the persistence of nations in a globalized world. It’s “the stubbornness of objects,” said James B. Cuno, the president and chief executive of the J. Paul Getty Trust and